1.Formulating Hypotheses for Different Study Designs
Durga Prasanna MISRA ; Armen Yuri GASPARYAN ; Olena ZIMBA ; Marlen YESSIRKEPOV ; Vikas AGARWAL ; George D. KITAS
Journal of Korean Medical Science 2021;36(50):e338-
Generating a testable working hypothesis is the first step towards conducting original research. Such research may prove or disprove the proposed hypothesis. Case reports, case series, online surveys and other observational studies, clinical trials, and narrative reviews help to generate hypotheses. Observational and interventional studies help to test hypotheses. A good hypothesis is usually based on previous evidence-based reports.Hypotheses without evidence-based justification and a priori ideas are not received favourably by the scientific community. Original research to test a hypothesis should be carefully planned to ensure appropriate methodology and adequate statistical power. While hypotheses can challenge conventional thinking and may be controversial, they should not be destructive. A hypothesis should be tested by ethically sound experiments with meaningful ethical and clinical implications. The coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic has brought into sharp focus numerous hypotheses, some of which were proven (e.g. effectiveness of corticosteroids in those with hypoxia) while others were disproven (e.g. ineffectiveness of hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin).
2.The Journal Impact Factor: Moving Toward an Alternative and Combined Scientometric Approach.
Armen Yuri GASPARYAN ; Bekaidar NURMASHEV ; Marlen YESSIRKEPOV ; Elena E UDOVIK ; Aleksandr A BARYSHNIKOV ; George D KITAS
Journal of Korean Medical Science 2017;32(2):173-179
The Journal Impact Factor (JIF) is a single citation metric, which is widely employed for ranking journals and choosing target journals, but is also misused as the proxy of the quality of individual articles and academic achievements of authors. This article analyzes Scopus-based publication activity on the JIF and overviews some of the numerous misuses of the JIF, global initiatives to overcome the ‘obsession’ with impact factors, and emerging strategies to revise the concept of the scholarly impact. The growing number of articles on the JIF, most of which are in English, reflects interest of experts in journal editing and scientometrics toward its uses, misuses, and options to overcome related problems. Solely displaying values of the JIFs on the journal websites is criticized by experts as these average metrics do not reflect skewness of citation distribution of individual articles. Emerging strategies suggest to complement the JIFs with citation plots and alternative metrics, reflecting uses of individual articles in terms of downloads and distribution of related information through social media and networking platforms. It is also proposed to revise the original formula of the JIF calculation and embrace the concept of the impact and importance of individual articles. The latter is largely dependent on ethical soundness of the journal instructions, proper editing and structuring of articles, efforts to promote related information through social media, and endorsements of professional societies.
Complement System Proteins
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Editorial Policies
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Humans
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Journal Impact Factor*
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Periodicals as Topic
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Proxy
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Publications
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Social Media
3.Preserving the Integrity of Citations and References by All Stakeholders of Science Communication.
Armen Yuri GASPARYAN ; Marlen YESSIRKEPOV ; Alexander A VORONOV ; Alexey N GERASIMOV ; Elena I KOSTYUKOVA ; George D KITAS
Journal of Korean Medical Science 2015;30(11):1545-1552
Citations to scholarly items are building bricks for multidisciplinary science communication. Citation analyses are currently influencing individual career advancement and ranking of academic and research institutions worldwide. This article overviews the involvement of scientific authors, reviewers, editors, publishers, indexers, and learned associations in the citing and referencing to preserve the integrity of science communication. Authors are responsible for thorough bibliographic searches to select relevant references for their articles, comprehend main points, and cite them in an ethical way. Reviewers and editors may perform additional searches and recommend missing essential references. Publishers, in turn, are in a position to instruct their authors over the citations and references, provide tools for validation of references, and open access to bibliographies. Publicly available reference lists bear important information about the novelty and relatedness of the scholarly items with the published literature. Few editorial associations have dealt with the issue of citations and properly managed references. As a prime example, the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) issued in December 2014 an updated set of recommendations on the need for citing primary literature and avoiding unethical references, which are applicable to the global scientific community. With the exponential growth of literature and related references, it is critically important to define functions of all stakeholders of science communication in curbing the issue of irrational and unethical citations and thereby improve the quality and indexability of scholarly journals.
Authorship/standards
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*Bibliography as Topic
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*Editorial Policies
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Information Dissemination/ethics
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Peer Review, Research/ethics/*standards
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Periodicals as Topic/ethics/*standards
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Publishing/ethics/*standards
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Quality Control
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Science/ethics/standards
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Writing/*standards
4.Multidisciplinary Bibliographic Databases.
Armen Yuri GASPARYAN ; Lilit AYVAZYAN ; George D KITAS
Journal of Korean Medical Science 2013;28(9):1270-1275
No abstract available.
*Databases, Bibliographic
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Humans
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Internet
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MEDLINE
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PubMed
5.Statement on Publication Ethics for Editors and Publishers.
Armen Yuri GASPARYAN ; Marlen YESSIRKEPOV ; Alexander A VORONOV ; Sergey V GORIN ; Anna M KOROLEVA ; George D KITAS
Journal of Korean Medical Science 2016;31(9):1351-1354
The digitization and related developments in journal editing and publishing necessitate increasing the awareness of all stakeholders of science communication in the emerging global problems and possible solutions. Journal editors and publishers are frequently encountered with the fast-growing problems of authorship, conflicts of interest, peer review, research misconduct, unethical citations, and inappropriate journal impact metrics. While the number of erroneous and unethical research papers and wasteful, or 'predatory', journals is increasing exponentially, responsible editors are urged to 'clean' the literature by correcting or retracting related articles. Indexers are advised to implement measures for accepting truly influential and ethical journals and delisting sources with predatory publishing practices. Updating knowledge and skills of authors, editors and publishers, developing and endorsing recommendations of global editorial associations, and (re)drafting journal instructions can be viewed as potential tools for improving ethics of academic journals. The aim of this Statement is to increase awareness of all stakeholders of science communication of the emerging ethical issues in journal editing and publishing and initiate a campaign of upgrading and enforcing related journal instructions.
Authorship
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Editorial Policies
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Ethics*
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Peer Review, Research
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Periodicals as Topic
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Publications*
6.Publishing Ethics and Predatory Practices: A Dilemma for All Stakeholders of Science Communication.
Armen Yuri GASPARYAN ; Marlen YESSIRKEPOV ; Svetlana N DIYANOVA ; George D KITAS
Journal of Korean Medical Science 2015;30(8):1010-1016
Publishing scholarly articles in traditional and newly-launched journals is a responsible task, requiring diligence from authors, reviewers, editors, and publishers. The current generation of scientific authors has ample opportunities for publicizing their research. However, they have to selectively target journals and publish in compliance with the established norms of publishing ethics. Over the past few years, numerous illegitimate or predatory journals have emerged in most fields of science. By exploiting gold Open Access publishing, these journals paved the way for low-quality articles that threatened to change the landscape of evidence-based science. Authors, reviewers, editors, established publishers, and learned associations should be informed about predatory publishing practices and contribute to the trustworthiness of scholarly publications. In line with this, there have been several attempts to distinguish legitimate and illegitimate journals by blacklisting unethical journals (the Jeffrey Beall's list), issuing a statement on transparency and best publishing practices (the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association's and other global organizations' draft document), and tightening the indexing criteria by the Directory of Open Access Journals. None of these measures alone turned to be sufficient. All stakeholders of science communication should be aware of multiple facets of unethical practices and publish well-checked and evidence-based articles.
Communication
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Disclosure/*ethics
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*Ethics, Research
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Fraud/*ethics
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Information Dissemination/*ethics
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Medical Writing
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Periodicals as Topic/ethics
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Publishing/*ethics
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Science/*ethics
7.Predatory Publishing Is a Threat to Non-Mainstream Science.
Armen Yuri GASPARYAN ; Bekaidar NURMASHEV ; Elena E UDOVIK ; Anna M KOROLEVA ; George D KITAS
Journal of Korean Medical Science 2017;32(5):713-717
This article highlights the issue of wasteful publishing practices that primarily affect non-mainstream science countries and rapidly growing academic disciplines. Numerous start-up open access publishers with soft or nonexistent quality checks and huge commercial interests have created a global crisis in the publishing market. Their publishing practices have been thoroughly examined, leading to the blacklisting of many journals by Jeffrey Beall. However, it appears that some subscription journals are also falling short of adhering to the international recommendations of global editorial associations. Unethical editing agencies that promote their services in non-mainstream science countries create more problems for inexperienced authors. It is suggested to regularly monitor the quality of already indexed journals and upgrade criteria of covering new sources by the Emerging Sources Citation Index (Web of Science), Scopus, and specialist bibliographic databases. Regional awareness campaigns to inform stakeholders of science communication about the importance of ethical writing, transparency of editing services, and permanent archiving can be also helpful for eradicating unethical publishing practices.
Accidental Falls
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Databases, Bibliographic
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Periodicals as Topic
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Specialization
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Writing
8.Researcher and Author Impact Metrics: Variety, Value, and Context.
Armen Yuri GASPARYAN ; Marlen YESSIRKEPOV ; Akmaral DUISENOVA ; Vladimir I. TRUKHACHEV ; Elena I. KOSTYUKOVA ; George D. KITAS
Journal of Korean Medical Science 2018;33(18):e139-
Numerous quantitative indicators are currently available for evaluating research productivity. No single metric is suitable for comprehensive evaluation of the author-level impact. The choice of particular metrics depends on the purpose and context of the evaluation. The aim of this article is to overview some of the widely employed author impact metrics and highlight perspectives of their optimal use. The h-index is one of the most popular metrics for research evaluation, which is easy to calculate and understandable for non-experts. It is automatically displayed on researcher and author profiles on citation databases such as Scopus and Web of Science. Its main advantage relates to the combined approach to the quantification of publication and citation counts. This index is increasingly cited globally. Being an appropriate indicator of publication and citation activity of highly productive and successfully promoted authors, the h-index has been criticized primarily for disadvantaging early career researchers and authors with a few indexed publications. Numerous variants of the index have been proposed to overcome its limitations. Alternative metrics have also emerged to highlight ‘societal impact.’ However, each of these traditional and alternative metrics has its own drawbacks, necessitating careful analyses of the context of social attention and value of publication and citation sets. Perspectives of the optimal use of researcher and author metrics is dependent on evaluation purposes and compounded by information sourced from various global, national, and specialist bibliographic databases.
Bibliometrics
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Databases, Bibliographic
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Efficiency
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Publications
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Specialization
9.Comprehensive Approach to Open Access Publishing: Platforms and Tools
Armen Yuri GASPARYAN ; Marlen YESSIRKEPOV ; Alexander A VORONOV ; Anna M KOROLEVA ; George D KITAS
Journal of Korean Medical Science 2019;34(27):e184-
The Open Access Initiative is gaining momentum due to the worldwide availability of advanced digital tools, online publishing platforms, and systems for tracking academic contributions. Several declarations and initiatives, including Plan S, have already laid a foundation for moving away from subscription to full and immediate open-access publishing. The global initiatives imply targeting journals satisfying the upgraded quality and visibility criteria. To meet these criteria, a comprehensive approach to Open Access is recommended. This article overviews the essential components of the comprehensive approach, increasing transparency, adherence to ethical standards, and diversification of evaluation metrics. With the increasing volume of quality open-access journals, their indexing with free databases and search engines is becoming increasingly important. The Directory of Open Access Journals and PubMed Central currently free searches of open-access sources. These services, however, cannot fully satisfy the increasing demands of the users, and attempts are underway to upgrade the indexing and archiving of open-access sources in China, Japan, Korea, Russia, and elsewhere. The wide use of identifiers is essential for transparency of scholarly communications. Peer reviewers are now offered credits from Publons. These credits are transferrable to their Open Researcher and Contributor iDs. Various social media channels are increasingly used by scholars to comment on articles. All these comments are tracked by related metric systems, such as Altmetrics. Combined with traditional citation evaluations, the alternative metrics can help timely identify and promote publications influencing education, research, and practice.
Abstracting and Indexing as Topic
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Access to Information
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Bibliography as Topic
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China
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Education
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Japan
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Korea
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Metric System
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Open Access Publishing
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Peer Review
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Periodicals as Topic
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Russia
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Search Engine
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Social Media
10.Scientific Hypotheses: Writing, Promoting, and Predicting Implications
Armen Yuri GASPARYAN ; Lilit AYVAZYAN ; Ulzhan MUKANOVA ; Marlen YESSIRKEPOV ; George D KITAS
Journal of Korean Medical Science 2019;34(45):e300-
Scientific hypotheses are essential for progress in rapidly developing academic disciplines. Proposing new ideas and hypotheses require thorough analyses of evidence-based data and predictions of the implications. One of the main concerns relates to the ethical implications of the generated hypotheses. The authors may need to outline potential benefits and limitations of their suggestions and target widely visible publication outlets to ignite discussion by experts and start testing the hypotheses. Not many publication outlets are currently welcoming hypotheses and unconventional ideas that may open gates to criticism and conservative remarks. A few scholarly journals guide the authors on how to structure hypotheses. Reflecting on general and specific issues around the subject matter is often recommended for drafting a well-structured hypothesis article. An analysis of influential hypotheses, presented in this article, particularly Strachan's hygiene hypothesis with global implications in the field of immunology and allergy, points to the need for properly interpreting and testing new suggestions. Envisaging the ethical implications of the hypotheses should be considered both by authors and journal editors during the writing and publishing process.
Allergy and Immunology
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Databases, Bibliographic
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Ethics, Research
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Hygiene Hypothesis
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Peer Review
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Publications
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Writing